Things to come
by chaos child
Summary: Cloud's pain over Aeris death somehow guides her back to him, but is her return a sign of things to come? Please R
1. Default Chapter

Ok then, better get this out of the way. I do not own Final Fantasy 7 or any of the characters in it ( that honour belongs to SquareSoft), but then this is a fanfiction site so I'm not gonna get sued even if I didn't say that.

Without further ado on with the show(always wanted to say that).

Chapter 1: Spiral of depression.

Cloud was, as always, lying on the sofa in his house, alone. He could have gone outside and wandered the evening streets of Costa de Sol, but he didn't want to. He wanted to lie right here. 

He was quite amazed at how short a time it had been since the defeat of Sephiroth Everyone else said it had been only five months, to him though, it felt like years. 

The rest of "AVALANCHE" had gone back to their lives, gone back to what they had fought for in the first place. Tifa and Barret had returned to the ruins of Midgar and together with the former citizens of the slums had built a new city, in a mockery of ShinRa they had called it "Neo Midgar", but it was as far from the ShinRa ideal as possible. Cloud had been there and seen the it, it was everything they could have hoped for, a place where people could live in peace with the planet rather than suck it dry of all life.

Red IIX had returned to Cosmo Canyon to live with his tribe and Cid had gone back to Rocket town with the Highwind, he now owned the only airship in the world and he was making a living from its use. Vincent had gone to Neblihem to brood on his sins and Yuffie had gone back to Watui.

Reeve was nowhere to be found and neither was his robot Cait Sith.

But Cloud could only live here, alone. He couldn't be around the others, he was too depressing to be around any more, he certainly couldn't stay in Neo-Midgar, it was too painful with Tifa there. Sure, he was "the guy who saved the world" to most people, but to himself he was "the guy who couldn't save Aeris". The urgency of Stopping meteor and killing Sephiroth had allowed him to ignore the worst of the grief before, but now he had nothing to distract him away from the constant painand the guilt. He blamed himself for her death and always had done.

He got up and started pacing back and fourth, he always did this, he was probably going insane, but he didn't care. 

So many emotions swirled in him when he thought about Aeris, which was most of the time. Love for her, sorrow at her death, hatred at Sephermoth, frustration and anger at himself for not being there in time to save her.

He wanted her more than Tifa, always had done. Not just in a sexual way though. He could have any woman he wanted, he was " the guy who saved the world" he reminded himself, but the one woman he did want was dead, plain and simple, dead.

He started to cry, "grown men shouldn't cry" Barret had said, but Cloud didn't care, he'd cry for Aeris and he'd cry for himself. He curled up in a ball and realised how long his grief had gone on for. His grief when Zack had died didn't last this long and they had been as close as friends could get.

He cried for hours and eventually, he got up and dug out an old box from the basement, it contained the only photos he had of her. He looked at them one by one, needing to see her face. The first photo was of her on a chocobo, she looked slightly worried up there on its feathery back but she was smiling, the second was of her at the gold saucer , completely overexcited and pulling Cloud along by the arm, his heart sighed at that picture. He knew what was coming next, he started to cry again and this time he couldn't stop, he got up, knocking his chair to the ground and started to hit the wall beside him. He pounded the wall with his fists as hard as he could, feeling the skin on is knuckles split as he took out his anger on the wall of his home. He gritted his teeth and focused on the wall as he fell to his knees and pounded his head on it. 

"Aeris,Aeris" he muttered to himself, right now he needed her more than anything else in the world, he needed the one woman he couldn't have, the woman he had been unable to help when she needed it the most.

As always, he cried himself to sleep.

Somewhere, his pain could be heard.

His pain helped to guide her.

****

Knock, Knock. There it was again, thought Cloud, he hadn't been sure it was knocking the first time, it was so quiet and weak sounding. He leapt up from his bed, glad for something to distract him from his memories.

He raced to the door and pulled it open, standing there in his doorway was Aeris. His mouth dropped open in surprise as she smiled weakly at him. "Weakly" was an understatement, she looked a mess. Her long brown hair was matted and dirty, her usually pale skin was almost bone white, she had cuts and bruises all over and her usual pink dress was covered in dirt and torn in a few places. 

"Aeris. you're" he started as she collapsed into his waiting arms.

Author: Well I'm going to take this story in any direction I feel like , so that's why its PG-13. Please R&R and if you have any suggestions on where I could take the plot, I might just use them.


	2. Reeve's mistake

I do not own Final Fantasy 7 or any of the characters within, Suqaresoft do.

Author:At the moment I'm only continuing this story for, I only have one reader(thanks for reviewing) so unless I get some more reviews I might get bored and stop writing it. So please R&R.

Tonberrey: Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Author: Where the hell did you come from?

Tonberrey: (Breaks into song) I came from the land of the pigmy goats, somewhere over the rainbow. I ne.

Author: Shut up!! Start the fic quickly!

On with the show.

Reeve struggled to reload his gun as he strained to hear movement in the forest around him. For the hundredth time since this had started to go wrong he cursed his stupid sense of honour. He had tried to do this himself rather than use the Cait Sith doll, he felt as if he should do this. He had wanted to do something to thank all of AVALANCHE and especially Cloud. It had been a great idea. Using Hojo's old notes on Jenova, the Ancients and various other things he had tried to resurrect Aeris, the woman who Cloud had loved.

It had worked, he thought, but the side effects were phenomenally bad and far-reaching. He had managed to bring her back, but when he had lifted her from death, something else happened as well. He still wasn't sure of the details, most of it was a blur to him, he remembered having to use a materia to transport her away from the city of the Ancients, he remembered a black shape washing over the pool where her body had lain and he remembered wasting all of his bullets on something that had followed Aeris out of whatever realm lay beyond death.

***

Aeris lay on Cloud's bed, asleep or in a coma he couldn't tell. He was deeply worried about her. He had cleaned her up and treated some of her wounds, none of which were major. He had removed her dirty ,torn clothes and put his bedsheets over her frail vulnerable body.She was still bone white and her breathing was very shallow.

When Cloud had opened the door to find Aeris he was both overjoyed and shocked beyond belief. When she had fainted he had pushed the shock away, there would be time for that later. Right now though Aeris was sick or injured and needed his help.

This time he was there for her.

As the hours wore on and night gave way to the clear ,bright morning, Cloud began to worry. He had once heard that the longer a person was in a coma the less chance there was of them waking up, but he couldn't remember if that was true or if it was just him being paranoid. Cloud sat by the bed ,longing to look into her deep emerald green eyes ,he had only caught a glimpse of them before she collapsed and there had been too many emotions in them to understand at once , even for him.

He reached out and touched her cheek, cupping her face in his hand. She felt warm.

"Aeris" he said, "I wish you could hear me"

Suddenly her lips parted and she let out a slight moan. It was the first definite thing she had done since collapsing and Cloud's heart skipped a beat as he heard the sound. Just as suddenly as she had moaned ,her arm moved and grasped limply at Cloud's wrist ,pulling his arm closer to her. Cloud's heart melted at this, and he almost started to cry. He was relived she wasn't in a coma, but he longed for her to awake, to hear her voice again and see her beautiful eyes.

Author: Please please please R&R this and I will continue the story.


End file.
